For thousands of years farmers and, more specifically, viticulturists, have irrigated plants and vines to provide for a controlled and consistent growth in the face of inconsistent weather patterns. More recently, farmers have adopted a system of drip irrigation that allows each and every vine in a field to be individually watered efficiently without water wasting sprinklers. However, this drip irrigation system provides water only on the top of the soil and the water does not penetrate deep into the soil. This causes the roots of the vines or plants to stay near the surface of the soil, instead of having the roots burrow down into the soil, as is preferred for a healthy and hardy plant. When a vine or plant has deep roots, the plant is better able to find its own supply of water in the lower water table and survive harsh weather conditions, such as extreme cold, extreme heat, or drought.
Several references attempt to overcome the problems with drip irrigation by providing an underground source of irrigation water to the plants. One type of underground irrigation system includes references that disclose ways to regulate water. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,453,343, issued to Grimes, 6,540,436, issued to Ogi, and 5,938,372, issued to Lichfield, are three such references. Other reference disclose irrigation systems that define types of holes, like U.S. Pat. No. 6,443,367, issued to Bova (which has a screw top hole), U.S. Published Patent Application No. 2003/0196375, filed by Ferro (which discloses multiple holes), and U.S. Pat. No. 5,996,279, issued to Zayeratabat (which discloses holes with a closeable lid).
These references, which share some common features, disclose irrigation systems that attempt to provide deep root irrigation water to a plant. However, these references do not solve all of the problems of the standard drip irrigation system, and importantly, none of these references disclose a solution that can take advantage of an existing drip irrigation system by directly connecting to the existing drip irrigation system. Thus, what is needed an efficient deep root irrigation system that can connect to the existing drip irrigation system that was previously installed.